


All That We See or Seem

by rhosyn_du



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Character Study, Dark, F/F, Gen, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 13:24:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21162365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhosyn_du/pseuds/rhosyn_du
Summary: It's easy, at first, to know who she is.





	All That We See or Seem

**Author's Note:**

  * For [janetcarter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/janetcarter/gifts).

It’s easy, at first, to know who she is, to know what she wants. She is Control. She wants to complete her mission. She is a means to an end. The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father.

It is easy, too, to know her host, the one who carries her inside her mind, Psi Corps’ ticking time bomb. Talia Winters, commercial telepath, rating P5. Nominally loyal to the Corps, but with tiny doubts she works hard to suppress. Pretty enough to appeal, but not enough to intimidate. Married once, briefly. A handful of lovers she remembers fondly, but no great loves. Wholly, and utterly unremarkable.

It is precisely these qualities that make Talia the perfect cover. She arrives on Babylon 5 to little fanfare, slipping almost seamlessly into the workings of the station. There is, of course, the natural aversion mundanes have to telepaths, the suspicion that Psi Corps rules don’t bind them as tightly as they claim to, but Talia blends in as well as any telepath could hope to, and Control takes small satisfaction in the fact that Bureau 13 chose their unwitting agent well.

Control barely even has to exert any effort in ingratiating Talia with the command staff of the station. Security Chief Garibaldi’s graceless flirtations annoy and amuse Talia in equal parts, and it takes only the smallest push from Control to tip the scales toward amusement. It’s Talia herself who allows that to grow into the beginnings of a fond friendship.

With Lieutenant-Commander Ivanova, Control doesn’t have to push even that far. It troubles Talia to be disliked by someone for whom she holds no ill will. Even more so to be disliked for what she represents than who she is. It preys upon those tiny doubts she has about Psi Corps and makes her eager to prove herself,  _ and _ Psi Corps, to the striking Lieutenant-Commander.

It takes Control several months to work out what the feeling is when she thinks too long on Talia, the twisting in her gut in those rare nocturnal moments when she is the one in control of their body, their mind. Disgust. Resentment. Disdain. Unlike a scan, which gives insight only into another’s thoughts, sharing a mind this way subjects Control not only to Talia’s thoughts and observations, but her feelings as well, and Talia Winters is weak and sentimental and extremely tedious. While that makes her perfect for this assignment, she is not who Control would have chosen to share a body with.

Control would not, she realizes, have chosen to share a body with anyone, had she been given a choice. It’s the first time she thinks about her own choices at all, or the possibility of making them.

~~~

Karl Mueller’s mind is twisted and desolate. Almost alien, but with an unmistakable underlying humanity that makes his thoughts even more unsettling. Control understands immediately why Talia didn’t want to do the scan.

She can feel Talia’s fear beating against her own tiny pocket of their mind like a thousand frantic moths’ wings. She can feel her dread—a deep, low pulling—at discovering just how many Mueller has killed. She can almost taste the sharp, rich flavor of her anguish over so many lives cut short.

More distantly, she can sense Mueller's thoughts, his open enjoyment of Talia’s pain. He would rather watch her die, of course. Watch her bleed out slowly, feel her heart stutter to beat with too little blood left to pump, see the horrified knowledge of her own death in her eyes. But this, to have her bear witness to the depth of his depravity, this will do.

Mueller’s methods are crude, the pleasure he takes in outright murder, vulgar, but as she nudges Talia’s dreams into nightmares that night, Control thinks perhaps he’s onto something when it comes to enjoying another’s pain.

~~~

The operation goes exactly to plan right up until it doesn’t, and Control watches through Talia’s eyes as the assassin she helped bring aboard the station looms over her with death in his eyes. His death, Talia discovers when she scans him, and it’s enough to send what’s left of the man who was Abel Horn stumbling away. And isn’t that just a mess in and of itself.

Still, Isogi is dead, so it’s not a total loss. And if Sheridan and the others do manage to draw a line from what Talia saw in Horn’s mind back to Psi Corps, well, that will at least make Talia more trustworthy in their eyes.

The real danger, at least to her, is that Talia was a witness to Isogi’s murder, and Horn knows it. The chances that he’ll be ordered to kill her next are...not insignificant. She’s expendable, she reminds herself. A means to an end. The Corps is Mother, the Corps is Father. She doesn’t want to die, but it isn’t her call to make.

She watches Talia grieve her friend and takes comfort in the pulsing thrum of Talia’s sorrow.

~~~

This should not be happening, should not be  _ possible _ . That a group of rogue telepaths can so easily bend a Psi Cop’s sense of reality is bad enough, but Talia Winters effectively lying to one, even while being scanned, is something else entirely. Because if she were strong enough to do such a thing, Psi Corps should have known.  _ Control _ should have known.

Control words her report carefully. She records what really happened with the rogue telepaths, who their leaders are, who on the station gives them aid. She includes how much trust this incident has built with those she’s surveying, especially Commander Ivanova, and how much easier it should make her future intelligence gathering.

She leaves out the depth of rage she feels at seeing the Corps betrayed by one of its own, no matter how much easier it makes her own mission. She leaves out how disquieting it is to know that, somehow, there are things she still doesn’t know about the woman whose mind she shares.

~~~

Getting to Lyta Alexander is easier than she thought it would be, Commander Ivanova’s insomnia providing the perfect opportunity. Simple enough to slip out of the empty bed, lift a PPG from a passing station security agent, and fake an order to transfer Alexander to more comfortable accommodations.

Control smiles as she raises the PPG, takes out the first guard. She can’t do anything about the traitor who shares her mind, not yet, but she can do something about this one, and it feels good to be able to do so in the name of protecting her mission.

Except Lyta Alexander, it turns out, is remarkably good at staying alive, and Control has to abandon the chase or risk blowing her cover. She abandons the PPG in an empty hallway in Brown Sector.

She lies awake after, turning over plan after imperfect plan for eliminating Alexander. When Ivanova finally returns from her midnight wanderings, she curls her body into Control’s—into Talia’s. Control feigns sleep, letting the fingers of one hand rest against Ivanova's neck, feeling the pulse there. She thinks about how easy it would be to end that flutter beneath her fingers. She doesn't, of course. That's a greater risk to her mission than even the traitor Alexander. But, she thinks of it, and of the horror Talia would feel waking to find her lover beside her, and the thought soothes the bitterness of her failure.

~~~

In the end, it all falls apart. Every plan, every contingency, obliterated in an instant by a single telepathic command sent too early by the wrong person. And when the shock fades, when the fury of being exposed passes, she finds herself adrift.

She packs Talia's things—her things, now—with steady hands. Her mission isn't over yet, not until she gives her full report, and chances are she won't survive the interrogation. Especially not once the Corps discovers what lurks in the back of her mind.

_ I feel you, you know. You can't hide from me. _

There is no answer from the muted bundle of thoughts and feelings that is all that's left of Talia Winters. Nothing coherent, anyway. This ghost of Talia is fainter even than sleeping Talia had been, before.

_ We're going to die. _ She isn't sure if she's taunting Talia or reassuring herself.  _ They won't let us live when they figure out you're still there. _

There is a chance, she knows, that they won't. A chance that whatever allowed Talia to lie to Bester all those months ago, whatever kept her from being completely obliterated when Alexander sent the password, will hide her presence now. She tries not to think about it, about the possibility of an after. A time when the mission is truly over, and she is just whatever is left. The thought leaves a deep, rumbling uneasiness in the pit of her stomach.

She could always tell the Corps herself about Talia. She isn’t sure why she hasn’t yet.

Her doorbell chimes, and she gathers her meandering thoughts. “Yes?”

The door swings open to reveal Commander Ivanova, and finally,  _ finally _ , she feels something from Talia. Longing and despair, sharp and sweet.

“I wanted to see you before you left,” Ivanova tells her, low and earnest. “I know this isn’t your fault, and I hope somewhere there’s a part of you that can still hear me.”

She scoffs, and oh, yes, Talia can hear, her tiny flicker of hope an annoyance. She chooses her next words carefully, crafting them to wound and only half true.

In the back of her mind, Talia is a bright ball of helpless outrage, and the warmth of it soothes the disquiet she’s felt since she realized her mission was almost over. Whatever happens, she decides, she won’t tell the Corps about Talia. She doesn’t know who she is or will be without her mission, but she has this, Talia’s pain, and she thinks perhaps it is enough.


End file.
